Working the EU long-path on 20M

After working on other things for the last few month’s I finally had a chance to get out again at the right time of day to have a go at working EU on the long path.

We headed up to Mt Gawler – VK5/SE-013 and proceeded to set up the phased verticals on 20M. Once set up a quick listen across 20M and it was fairly busy, and eventually found a free frequency and put up a spot.

A close-up of the base of one of the 20M verticals. You can see the Coax, the vertical and the 4 elevated ground radials

On the 2nd call the spot was out and I had my first EU contact in the log with Danny, ON4VT at 05:52, and quickly followed with a whole lot more!

Working the Pile-Up

Now, I normallyforget that my phone has a easonable video camera in it, but today, I asked Ray to grab a bit of video.

At 06:20 once things started to pick up, we grabbed a few minutes – and the last 30-40 seconds where what it was like for at least 30 minutes!

It was a constant go and between 05:52 and 07:10 where I worked 75 contacts on 20M. In the mix there were 1 JA station, 2 US stations, 1 Canadian, 10 VK stations and 61 EU stations across several countries – including a new country for me from a summit – SV9RGI in Crete. In the mix there was around 15 EU contries in the 80 minutes I was on 20M